Latest Changes - Dec 13, 2014

This deck is based on the standard vanilla Control Warrior, with a few changes with cards from GvG.

Control Warriors have a lot of synergy with doing damage to their own minions for different advantages, such as card draw, armor and more damage on the board.

So what cards are good enough to include in a standard Control Warrior, that makes this different from a pre-GvG deck?

Bouncing Blade; this adds a lot of synergy with the rest of the cards in this deck, and could also be a great way to turn the board around if you're behind, for example if your enemy has two minions out combine this with Execute. It serves the same purpose as Whirlwind did before, but with the potential of more damage to enemy minions, and more card draw/armor/damage for you. Not to mention that this instantly kills off any big minion your opponent has on the board if it's their only one. It's also very effective to keep the board clear long enough for you to get your big minions out, as this instantly kills a Chillwind Yeti, Dark Cultist, or a Druid of the Claw if you've managed to keep the board empty.

Commanding Shout; this isn't something that I thought was good enough in a Control Warrior before, but to combine this with Bouncing Blade will allow all of your minions to survive until one of the opponents minions is dead, all while triggering Armorsmith's, Frothing Berserker's, Acolyte of Pain's. Since you can still attack with all of these minions after the blade stopped bouncing, it can make for quite an effective board clear, or more damage to the face if the situation calls for it.

Shieldmaiden; this is a fantastic class card for warriors, and will be very useful. A 5/5 for 6 mana isn't that good, but considering you get the armor value of a Shield Block for just 3 extra mana makes this card very good. Using this and Shield Slam can be a very effective way to turn the board around to your favor.

So which cards didn't make the cut?

Warbot in my opinion isn't good enough, because more often than not your first few turns is just gonna be focused on gathering armor, and using weapons or spells to deal with the opponents minions.

Ogre Warmaul isn't a bad weapon by itself, 4/2 is very good for 3 mana. There are however better (and more reliable) weapons, not to mention there are plenty of other ways in the deck to deal with threats.

Siege Engine could potentially be good, but I think it will be a fast target for many bigger removals, such as Shadow Word: Death, Big Game Hunter, etc. What's good about it however is that if it were to get out of hands and get silenced, you'd still have 5 damage. With that being said, you don't need extra damage for control, and Frothing Berserker would, in my opinion, be a better alternative to boost your minions damage.

Crush isn't a bad card, with a damaged minion on the board you're looking at a more accurate Deadly Shot, but I think Execute combined with many other things would be a better alternative.

What are some alternative cards?

The Black Knight is a very good counter card, and can be very good if you play against a lot of taunts.

Cairne Bloodhoof is never a bad card to have in a control deck, it's very annoying to deal with and even if it draws out a silence you still have a Baine Bloodhoof to deal with.

Loatheb isn't a bad idea either, and if you play your cards right (ha ha) can be very effective and win the game. However if you play him at the wrong time it's just a 5/5 for 5, which isn't that good.

Faceless Manipulator's versatility makes it a very good card, but due to lack of space in the deck he had to be cut.

Iron Juggernaut doesn't have very good stats with 6/5 for 6 mana, and most games with this type of deck will be won through pure control, and you don't need 10 damage at a random point (or never), which is why I excluded it from this deck. It would however go through Ice Block since the mandatory card draw happens at the mages turn, but Control Warriors usually win vs. Spell Mages and Secret Mages anyway. If you're sitting on the card however and you lack something else it could be a good addition to the deck.

Gorehowl is very common in Control Warrior decks, and it works very well for control or just 7 damage to the face (especially combined with Alexstrasza).

Ysera was originally in this deck, but had to be taken out due to being to slow. If you feel you play mostly against slow control decks it might be a good idea to put this back in.

A similar deck worked very well for me before GvG, and I have a feeling this will work very well also. If you have any suggestions for improvements, share your thoughts.

Updated deck v1.1:

After playing a few games after the actual GvG release, I came to the same conclusion that many others noted and posted about in the comments below. Given that the new expansion has caused an influx of both rush decks, and paladin decks (not to mention paladin rush decks), I decided to remove Ysera from the deck, as it was the slowest card in there, and add a Whirlwind.

Updated deck v1.2:

While I felt the deck was doing quite decently, I felt it needed some improvements. First of all, I removed the Frothing Berserkers. They're best played in combination with Armorsmiths and Acolyte of Pains, but there wasn't always the possibility to combo the cards, and without a combo they were often underperforming. Granted, they they did sometimes downright win me the game, but this was somewhat rare and in most cases they never had a chance to go berserk before they were killed.

I decided to add another Whirlwind and a Death's Bite instead to perform better vs. the rush decks, which was the hardest match-up.

I tried the deck out a few times, and the new changes made it much easier to play against most forms of rush decks, but it did lower my win rate vs. control (and especially Handlock) decks.

Sadly enough, the Bouncing Blades lost a lot of it's value when the Frothing Berserkers were removed from the deck, which is why I took those out as well. I really wish I didn't have to, because I think it's a really fun card (probably my favorite from GvG) and it can be really versatile. Having one in your deck might be fine as it can be used to instantly kill anything that a Druid ramps out early, or if a Handlock throws out two big minions and you can combo it with an Execute, or just trigger an Armorsmith or Acolyte of Pain. Depending on what the meta looks like when GvG cools down a bit I might be able to put one back (maybe instead of a Whirlwind) or something. I really hope so.

Without a bunch of blades bouncing around, Commanding Shout became more or less useless, and having it in the deck was just redundant.

Since Handlock was my hardest match-up, and other late-game oriented decks gave me some trouble as well, I decided to add a Big Game Hunter.

There's also a lot of weapons floating around, especially as Paladins is being played a lot more than before, but also due to an increase of Control Warriors (maybe due to Sjow hitting rank 1 on both NA and EU servers). Enough so that I felt that Harrison Jones should make an appearance in the deck.

That left me with one card left to put in, and I decided to go for another Sludge Belcher. Mainly because because it eats two hits from two big minions that Handlocks and any other deck that focuses on the late game can throw out, but also because it can delay a rush deck for a turn or two.

Current stats in ranked since the latest changes:

Class

Type

Win

Losses

Mage

Control

3

1

Mage

Mech

4

0

Mage

Miracle

2

0

Druid

Control

2

1

Druid

Ramp

1

0

Druid

Rush

1

0

Warrior

Control

1

1

Warrior

Rush

2

0

Warlock

Handlock

2

2

Warlock

Murloc

1

0

Warlock

Zoo

1

0

Priest

Control

4

2

Hunter

Huntertaker

4

2

Hunter

Control

1

2

Paladin

Control

4

2

Rogue

Miracle/Mech

0

1

Rogue

Rush/Mech

1

0

Rogue

Mill

0

1

Rogue

Control/Mech

1

0

Shaman

Control

1

1

Shaman

Rush

0

1

Current stats are 67.92 % wins, or 2.12 wins per loss. Win rate has improved now, and is now almost as good as the original deck after Ysera was removed. I am however playing 10 ranks higher than before.

10-6 (Should have been 11-5, stupid misplay) so far with this deck using Loatheb in place of Harrison due to not having dust to craft him after finally completing a Warr Control deck by crafting Grom+Alex.I think I will use this and try to get time for the climb to legendary.

Very interesting Warrior Control. I never thought to use Commanding Shout with Bouncing Blades it's a pretty smart combo. I do have to note, what happens when you use this combo when you're the only one with minions on the board? I did replace some cards with Ironbeak Owl, and the second Shield Maiden with another Cruel Taskmaster for more Execution activation and Grom activation.

Also your reason for not putting in Iron Juggernaut is lackluster as many cards with 6 mana have 6/5 or even less e.g. Cairne, Hogger, Sylvannas, TBK, etc. I think the main reason this card wouldn't make sense than any other cards is that it's ability is unreliable as a finisher. It can only be used when the enemy has at least 10 cards left in his/her deck, but Grommash Hellscream does a better job at finishers, a more consistent one at that. It could be good against Mill Rogues and Mill Druids because they draw to it faster, but this is more of a niche pick. So that should be your reason for not using it than a "6 mana card with bad stats".

If you use Commanding Shout and Bouncing Blades with no opponents minion on the board the blade keeps bouncing until each of your minions all have 1 health and then stops.

Generally what you want is to have minions with good stats, which Iron Juggernaut don't have.

Cairne Bloodhoof technically has the stats of a 4/10 since there is another 4/5 Baine Bloodhoof to deal with after Cairne Bloodhoof dies. Unless he gets silenced of course, but in that case you still draw out a silence (which is a limited resource) from your opponents deck for 2 mana and end up with the value of a Chillwind Yeti.

Even if your opponent find your way through your 2/2 Gnoll and kills your Hogger immediately, you still technically get the value of a 6/6 for 6 mana, with the potential for more, so it's still decent just stats wise.

Sylvanas Windrunner, The Black Knight, or Harrison Jones for example are such great cards because their extra effect brings out more than enough value to compensate for their stats being a bit worse. Iron Juggernaut's extra effect however, just isn't - in my opinion - good enough to justify putting it in to your deck, because as I stated before, you just don't need 10 damage at a random point (or never) in the game.

Also I can understand the thought process on why certain cards are better than Iron Juggernaut than, let's say Cairne because (as you stated) technically count his Deathrattle, with drops a 4/5, theoretically makes it a 4/10, and other said cards.

Well, let's do a simple example. A Frothing Berserker is a simple 2/4 minion from the start. Let's say you have two Frothing Berserkers on the board and nothing else. As long as the opponent doesn't throw out a taunt, but any other minion, you could potentially throw out an Armorsmith, and an Acolyte of Pain, followed by Commanding Shout and Bouncing Blade. Now, let's say your blades are extremely unlucky and just hit each minion once before it kills a minion. That would be 4 minions for you and probably 1 or more from your opponent. Since they all have 2+health, we're talking 1 health each from all of them (5), and 2 more to kill off the weakest one. That gives you 7 hits on each Berserker, buffing them both up to a solid 9/3 (this is still if you're unlucky with the blade). Since you can trade with them immediately for a board clear and increased damage, that's some serious board advantage, all while allowing you to keep drawing cards and boosting your armor. However, it can also be used as sort of an OTK play. If you're really lucky your Frothing Berserkers hit 15+ damage and you can immediately go for the kill.

Shamans fill the board sooo fast after each board clear, I cannot figure out how to beat then with this deck. I even run two brawls, wait for them to have 7 minions and still they re fill the board sooo fast.

I'm also having problems against shamans, even with explosive sheep, they fill the board extremly fast, bad thing is I'm missing Geddon. Do you have any suggestion how us CW's could go against them? Even when I manage to stall them till Endgame they still beat me.

For me it's the rarest match-up there is, so personally being weak against Shamans wouldn't have been an issue. With that said however, there are now 3 types of Shaman decks being played.

Control Shaman shouldn't be that hard to beat, as Warriors have a much better late game. Mission here is just to survive and armor up for as long as possible, the longer the game goes on the better your odds are of winning. Baron Geddon makes a really big difference, as he can clear out an entire board full of totems and still do 7 points of damage the next turn. Something else important is to - unless you have a very good reason not to - kill the Wrath of Air Totem over the other totems, but often it's still better to have a few damage wasted on killing off their spell damage than hitting the opponents hero. Another thing to think about is to avoid having your minions at 3 health if possible, as it will guarantee a 2 for 1 trade for a Fire Elemental, not to mention the many other ways a Shaman can off something with 3 health (Rockbiter Weapon, worst possible Crackle, Lightning Bolt or just a Flametongue Totem next to a Searing Totem). Last thing is to play a bit careful - for example if you're facing an empty board on turn 8 it's a much better idea to throw out a Shieldmaiden and Armor Up! rather than use Ragnaros the Firelord. A 5/5 is likely to get Hexed as it has a strong body for favorable trading and would make short work of a Fire Elemental. Once they've used up both Hexes, it's time to throw out the big legendaries.

Rush Shaman shouldn't be that hard to beat either, the trick is to kill off all minions all the time, as a Bloodlust can be absolutely devastating with just a few totems and a charge. Treat it as any other rush deck, if you have the possibility to throw out a Sludge Belcher just to delay one more turn so they throw out more minions (and waste more cards) before you can Brawl, that's a good idea. With that said however, Earth Shock is just a 1 mana spell that allows them to go through taunt, so if you throw out a big taunt on round 5 and pass the turn with a few minions left on the board, you might be looking at an Earth Shock+Bloodlust combination.

The last deck that's currently being played is Murloc Shaman. I've only played one game against this type of deck, so I'm afraid that I don't have enough experience to give solid advice. I lost that game, because even though I managed to keep the board somewhat empty until midgame, he threw out a Neptulon and a few rounds later double Murloc Warleaders and Old Murk-Eye. That and the one murloc that already sat on the board without summoning sickness made short work of my armor and won in a few turns. If you play against a Murloc Shaman a good idea might be to save an Execute, or Shield Block+Shield Slam to make sure you don't face a 7/7 plus a board full of mediocre minions that all buff each other. Saving a Brawl to use a turn or two after Neptulon to get rid of all the murlocs should greatly increase your odds. Other than that, all you can really do is try to armor up, minimize the opponents card draw and hope that the murlocs they get are ones that doesn't buff other ones.